Silver-manganese ore dressing process revealed

Silver-manganese ore is an important ore source for smelting metallic silver. Silver-manganese ore can be simply divided into oxidation type, sulfide type, carbonate type and hydroxide type according to the mineral type. Among them, oxidation type is the main silver-containing type currently discovered, and it is mainly distributed on the surface or shallow layer. It is the main type that is easy to economically mine and utilize.

 The associated silver minerals of silver-manganese ore mainly exist in the form of natural silver, gold-silver ore, silver-gold ore, etc., in the form of fine particles, and are isomorphously present in the manganese ore lattice. It is difficult to obtain high-grade silver concentrate by mechanical separation, and it is also difficult to obtain good silver leaching indicators by a single cyanidation method. It is recognized as one of the difficult-to-treat silver-containing ores.

 Gravity separation of silver-manganese ore

Gravity separation is to separate mixed ore particles according to the different falling speeds of various ore particles in water or air. Since silver-manganese ore has a large specific gravity and a high mud content, gravity separation can be used to separate silver-manganese ore from other silicates, or to remove fine mud for preliminary enrichment, reduce the processing volume of subsequent processes, and provide conditions for the next process. Gravity separation can also be used to recover other associated valuable minerals in silver-manganese ore when appropriate.

 Silver-manganese ore magnetic separation

Manganese metal has weak magnetism and can be recovered by strong magnetic separation. Silver and manganese in silver-manganese ore exist in the form of co-associated combination. The enrichment of manganese minerals can bring about the enrichment of silver minerals. Therefore, silver-manganese ore can be pre-enriched by magnetic separation or even directly produce high-quality silver-manganese concentrate. Magnetic separation is relatively economical and environmentally friendly, and does not produce waste.

 Silver-manganese ore flotation

Generally speaking, strong magnetic separation is an effective means to select silver-manganese minerals. As for the natural silver in silver-manganese ore, since it is mostly distributed in quartz and calcite gangue minerals, strong magnetic separation has a poor effect on the recovery of natural silver. Flotation is a suitable method for the recovery of natural silver. Since silver minerals have good floatability, sodium sulfide is generally used as an adjuster, and butyl xanthate and butyl ammonium black medicine are used as collectors to obtain good results.

 Wet separation of silver-manganese ore

The silver embedded in silver-manganese ore has a fine particle size, and silver-manganese minerals cannot be directly separated by mineral processing methods. The mineral processing operation can generally only obtain manganese-silver mixed concentrates; the leaching rate of direct silver leaching of raw ore or concentrate is also low; the mixed concentrate cannot effectively separate the main components such as manganese and silver by conventional pyrometallurgical processes. In addition, the pyrometallurgical process requires high temperature conditions, high energy consumption, and serious air pollution. It is generally only suitable for processing manganese-silver ores with low silicon content.